faith and patience. a sermon for the times
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FAITH AND PATIENCE.
SERMON FOR THE TIMES,
Rey. WILLIAM P. BREED.
PREACHED IN THE
mim 3imm 3imt ^^^i^imm mmtU, ^lillmUiMu,
Thanksgiving morning, November 27, 1862.
Repeated, by request, February 8, 1863.
PHILADELPHIA:JOHN ALEXANDER, PRINTER, 52 SOUTH FOURTH STREET,
1863.
,3
Philadelphia, February 9th, 1863.
Reverend and Dear Sir :
Your discourse of last evening upon the " Spirit of
Christian Patriotism," appears to us so eminently adapted to supply a pressing
want in the present condition of our beloved country, and calculated as it is
to promote that pm-e spirit of nationality so essential under God, to the sus-
taining of the best of Governments, that we cannot allow the opportunity to
pass without endeavoring to give a more extended publicity to the sentiments
which you have so happily embodied therein.
Permit us therefore to request that the manuscript may be placed at our dis-
posal for publication, and oblige
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servants,
Henry D. Sherrerd, H. D. Maxwell,
Morris Patterson, Samuel A. Lewis,
James Imbrie, .Jr., John B. Austin,
D. L. Collier, J. E. Gould,
George Junkin, Jr., G. S. Benson,
Charles 0. Abbey, Claudius B. Linn,
William L. Mactier, Albert F. Damon,
William E. Schenck, A. W. Little,
WiNTHROP Tappan, C. H. Grant.
To the Rev. William P. Breed,
Pastor of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church.
To H. D. Sherrerd, George Junkin, Jr. and others.
Gentlemen :
Gratification at your approval of the sentiments of the
discourse, for which you so kindly ask, forbids delay in acceding to your re-
quest. Our smitten Government needs, and most righteously claims the sym-
pathy, forbearance, and generous, earnest support of every citizen over whomits starry symbol waves, and it will be the pride and joy of our children, and
our children's children, that it had ours in this, the day of its trial. Our ship
is at sea in an angry storm, and her only course to the port of safety and
peace, lies over the submerged moutain-tops of the Rebellion. May the God of
Nations speedily sink those mountains, and summon us to cast anchor in that
port
!
Very respectfully and truly yours,
W. P. BREED.Philadelphia, February 10, 18G3.
SERMON.
Isaiah 28: 16.—" He that believetii shall not make haste."
Isaiah prophesied during some of the best, and some
of the worst periods of Jewish history. It is not sur-
prising therefore that his writings should reflect his
times. Accordingly we find them, as we sometimes
find the skies, piled with tremendous masses of angry
cloud, but broken here and there with patches of blue,
so pure and rich, as to reassure every beholder of the
necessary evanescence of the storm, and of the certainty
of the returning calm.
Here are some specimens of these clouds, " Behold
the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,
and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the
inhabitants thereof." " The earth mourneth and fadeth
away, the world languisheth and fadeth away." " In
the city is left desolation and the gate is smitten with
destruction."
Now look through the openings in these clouds, and
see how rich a blue lies beyond. " Behold I lay in
Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious
corner stone, a sure foundation."
In other words, these clouds that enshroud Zion, and
fill the hearts of the timid and unbelieving with dismay,
are only the dust of Jehovah's feet as he comes to lay
in Zion that " precious corner stone."
Let this truth take fast hold of the mind, and what
will be the effect? "He that believeth" it "will not
make haste." He will not fret with impatience at the
tardiness of divine providence, for when God begins to
build, the cost has been counted, and the work will
assuredly be completed.
The lesson here indicated, is a lesson for all time—
a
lesson for individuals and for nations. So long as provi-
dential surprises continue ; so long as calms vanish in
storms; so long as untimely frosts make choice human
interests wilt and die ; so long as terrestrial Vesuvius's
build in one night, their awful mausolea over our
Herculaneums and Pompeiis, so long will it be needful
to con and re-con, to recite and re-recite the lesson
:
" He that believeth shall not make haste." It is the
lesson of Patience founded on Faith. It is to this
lesson we now invite the Christian Patriot—a calm,
resolute, persistent patience, grounded upon a profound,
intelligent faith.
I._FAITH.
1. Above all, Faith in God—as He moves on in His
ever-developing purpose to lay in Zion that cornerstone,
and erect thereon the edifice of Messianic glory. Be
always sure that God is working to this end. His
footfall is heard among the nations. The sound of his
going is heard in human hearts. The world is now
impressed with a mysterious sense of his presence.
And he is in all this great national work that so
engrosses our thoughts and hearts, and in it to compel a
crystalization of events around his own ideas. Let Him
work, and let Unbelief tremble and Faith rejoice wdiile
he works
!
2. Next to this higher faith, let us retain faith in our
government and in our cause.
To this end, it were well that we now and then close
our ears to the noise of the chariot-wheels as we are
borne along, and our eyes to the blinding dust, and
bethink ourselves of our nation's origin and history, and
the underlying, pervading and all-controlling principles
of our government, and ask what there is in them to
weaken the faith of the Christian patriot, or startle him
with the suspicion that faith in them, is inconsistent
with faith in God.
The seeds out of which the nation grew, were swept
from plants of godliness on European shores, and sown
on these, by the merciless blasts of religious persecution.
And what treatment has religion received at the
hands of our government? That government, be it
remembered, has never raised the rod of religious
pesecution. It has never passed a law to constrain the
conscience. It has left each man where God leaves
liim, individually responsible to Himself, for his reli-
gious opinions and his worship. As God says, so it
says—" He that heareth let him hear, he that forbeareth
let him forbear." The absurdities and iniquities of
church alliance with, and of consequence, subjection to
the state, have never been sought by her.
But not only has our Government refrained from
laying violent hands upon our Religion, she has smiled
upon it in all kindness, and under her segis we have
grown up a Christian nation. The great Conventions,
assembled for the nomination of candidates for the
Presidency, have been in most cases opened with prayer
to the Triune God. The President elect takes his oath
of office upon the Word of God. The sessions of our
Houses of Congress are opened with prayer. The
Christian Sabbath is in many ways distinctly recog-
nized. Our legislations, so far as it has borne at all
upon religion, has always been Christian in its character.
Again and again has the voice of our National Execu-
tive been heard, calling us to thanksgiving for blessings,
or to lamentations for, and confessions of sins. In our
land. Gospel institutions have sprung up like willows
by the water-courses. This day we see an army of five
millions of communicants, enrolled under the banner of
evangelical religion, and every Sabbath's sun, looks
down upon some four millions of children in Christian
Sabbath schools, grouped around more than four hun-
dred thousand Sabbath school teachers. Our land fur-
nishes a home for thirty thousand, or thirty-five thou-
sand ministers of the Gospel, averaging more than
one for every thousand of our population, who preach
with more or less regularity, in some sixty thousand
houses of worship of various classes. Bible societies,
tract societies, colporteur agencies and other societies,
together with voluntary contributions of some ten
millions of dollars annually for religious purposes, make
up a world of hallowed activities, that set the broad seal
of Christianity upon our national character, so plain
that he may read who runs.
It is abundantly manifest therefore, that our Govern-
ment sheds no blighting influence upon the interests of
religion.
But America's greatest statesman, the Hon. Daniel
Webster, goes even further than this. He declares
Christianity to be ''a part of the law of the land."
The church edifices of all denominations, he adds
—
" The consecrated graveyards and their tombstones and
epitaphs, the silent vaults and their mouldering con-
tents, all affirm it. The generations gone before speak
it—we feel it. All, all proclaim that Christianity,
general, tolerant Christianity ; Christianity independent
of sect and party, is the law of the land."
But we must further ask how far this Government
has discharged the legitimate duties, and reached the
legitimate results of governmental sway? If it has
8
here made signal failure, let it sink to merited ruin and
oblivion. On this point we will cite into court, an un-
ceptionable witness—the Vice-President of the Rebellion.
And though his voice now comes to us over a hecatomb
of more than two hundred thousand men, slain in mur-
derous aggression upon this government, his words shall
stand for ever as an eloquent vindication of our resist-
ance to that aggression.
Hardly more than two years ago, in the capital of his
own noble, though now temporarily erring State, he
spoke as follows :" That this government of our fathers,
with all its defects, comes nearer the objects of all good
governments, than any other on the face of the earth, is
my settled^ conviction ! Where ^vdll you go, following
the sun in its circuit round the globe, to find a govern-
ment that better protects the liberties of its people, and
secures to them the blessings we enjoy." '•' '•' " I think
that one of the evils tliat beset us is a surfeit of liberty,
an exuberance of the priceless blessings for which we are
ungrateful.''''' ''' " I look upon this country with our
institutions, as the Eden of the world, the paradise
of the universe!"
0, that the man who could utter such words as these,
had had the courage to die, rather than abet and counte-
nance a rebellion that has laid so large a portion of this
" Eden of the world," this " paradise of the universe,"
waste with fire and sword.
Turning from this now fallen eulogist to the object
9
of his panegyric, we find indeed that the great princi-
ples that pervade and characterize it, that give it its
" form and pressure," and control its action are those
of the Word of God. All our institutions that are of a
national character, grow out of the truth that a man is
a man, made in the image of God, and therefore
to he dealt with, with becoming reverence, kindness
and tenderness. This principle never found national
recognition until uttered in the memorable Declaration,
that gave birth to us as a people.
Other governments of all countries and ages, place
themselves in direct antagonism with this doctrine by
assuming a birth superiority in political right, privilege
and office, of certain classes over others—a theory that
in realization, dooms the masses to a subordination,
that breaks the individual spirit, and impoverishes
the household.
Contrast now the principle for which, with that
against which we are contending. What is the doc-
trine of Secession, to say nothing of that institution, in
whose interest almost exclusively this war is waged
—
what is Secession itself as a principle, or a right, but, as
has been said with no less power than truth, " the
essence of all immorality." The right of a subordinate
to throw off at will, the bonds of legitimate supremacy is
the right the angels exercised when they fell ; the right
the sinner exercises when he defies his God.
In politics, this right of a minority to set at naught
2
10
<and override the will of the majority, if well-grounded,
will still exist when any State or number of States has
become independent, and in the bosom of the new
government, the process may be repeated at will, and so
on till some one man, the last possible minority, shall
be the master, and the millions lie at his feet. Seces-
sion is thus the highway, nay, the railway to Despotic
Autocracy. And the struggle of the day is not so much
a struggle of bayonets and cannon, as of these two great
ideas—Despotism and Democracy. On the one side is
the assertion, backed by gigantic armies, of the Euro-
pean doctrine, which gives classes and races a birth-
right superiority and dominion over races and classes
;
and on the other side, a million-mouthed contradiction
of that idea, coupled with the declaration that a manis a man, and that majorities must not, ought not, and
in one instance at least, will not bow to a heady,
overbearing minority.
It was by the constitutional vote of the Nation that
its government, for the time being was committed into
the hands of the present administration. A minority
has risen up, sword in hand against this determination
of their more numerous brethren.
And this is the question now under angry discussion
on every battle-field—whether one man being equal to
one man, ten men are not more than equal to five, and
twenty millions to six millions.
Now, with faith in these truths, derived from the
11
Word of God, what remains to us but to do our duty
and be hopeful ? When since the world began, has God
allowed a government founded on righteous principles,
characterized by wise and righteous laws, while execu-
ting well all the legitimate functions of government, to
fall before the hand of violence ? Let us do our duty
and be hopeful. Thought is mightier than Columbiads
!
Principles are more resistless than bayonet charges
!
Truth is powerful, and is prevailing and must prevail
!
He then that believeth, will not make haste. He
will not rise at midnight, and thrust his head from the
window to look for baleful meteors in the sky. He will
not go asking at the street corners after evil tidings,
and turn pale at the cry of a news-boy. If some
affrighted or designing pen, indite and publish startling
rumors ; if an election go contrary to his wishes, or a
favorite military commander is replaced by another,
instead of losing his temper, courage and appetite, and
"sighing like furnace," as if the death-knell of the
Republic were booming in his ears, he will lift his eyes
to heaven, and fix them on the great blue patches
of Scripture principle, that give character to the con-
test we are conducting, and trust in them and in God !
On the ground of this rational faith we plead for,
II.—PATIENCE.
1. Patience with our National Administration. On
this point we speak with the more confident earnest-
12
ness, as in accordance with our views of duty at the
time, we voted most cordially against the present in-
cumbent in the Chief Magistracy, and as cordially dis-
approved of nearly every appointment in his Cabinet,
and hence we know that we are actuated by no tinge of
partizan feeling.
This administration may he chargeable with errors,
many and grave. Still the present incumbents are there
legitimately. They are there by operation of constitu-
tional law. They are there providentially. They are
" the powers that be," and they are " ordained of God,"
and they are " God's ministers, appointed for and
attending continually upon this very thing."
To fortify our patience, we should now and then
recal the circumstances under which this administration
came into power.
Our ship was caught in one of the wildest storms that
ever a nation weathered. Our dear old flag was torn
to ribbons in the gale. A mutinous crew, with all
arrangements long matured, first robbed, then scuttled,
then abandoned the ship, while he who held the helm
in a powerless hand, what time he should have lighted
all her guns, and let loose all their thunders, could only
find heart to say with poor, old Eli, "' Nay, my sons, it
is no good report I hear of you !" And the old ship
drifted into port, water-logged, without a sail, without
a mast, without a cargo. And our handful of foreign
friends cried out in sorrow, and our swarms of foreign
13
foes in exultcation—" Thy rowers have brought thee
into great waters. The '^ south' wind hath broken
thee in the midst of the seas. Thy riches and thy
fairs, thy merchants and thy mariners, and thy pilots
and thy caulkers, and the occupiers of thy merchan-
dize, and all thy men of war that are in thee, and in
thy company which are in the midst of thee, shall fall
into the midst of the seas in this the day of thy ruin!"
Such w^as the condition, and such the prospects of
that old ship, when the present crew went on board.
The new helmsman could as little divine when he took
his inauguration oath, having been borne to the spot
through ranks of bayonetted and loaded muskets, the
sheen of burnished and loaded cannon in his eye,
whither l]e might be borne by the angry, awful tide of
events, as could Abraham of old, when he went out
from Urr of the Chaldees, whither his God might con-
duct him. And days passed, and nights dragged their
slow length along, during which millions of patriots fell
asleep to dream of horrors, and awoke to weep, and
groan, and tremble. Weeks elapsed during any hour
of which, it would not have surprised us to learn that
the fate of the Republic had realized the worst fears of
its friends, and the worst wishes of its foes. And we
verily believe, that there are not ten men in a hundred
throughout our northern land, who would not then have
given their right hand to have been assured by an
angel from heaven, that the present hour would have
14
found the nation in as favorable circumstances as it
now enjoys. And we as confidently believe, that
had the same angel depicted to the people in the
revolted districts, the course of events from that hour
to this, they would have tied millstones about the
neck of their leaders and drowned them in the depths
of the sea, ere they would have allowed the torch of
death to send that first fatal ball at our flag on Sump-
ter's walls
!
And it were an injustice to our Government, and an
injury to ourselves, to lose sight of what that Govern-
ment has done. We had neither navy, army, arms,
nor ammunition. We needed a million of soldiers,
hundreds of cannon, and tons of tons of powder and
ball, and supplies of clothing and provisions, that could
hardly be estimated, and withal the greatest wisdom
and delicacy in the management of our relations with
foreign powers.
Thus far we have esca23ed serious entanglement with
these. The million of men have been brought into
the field, armed and equipped. And instead of seventy-
six vessels and seventeen hundred guns in our navy
two years ago, we have now more tlian four hundred
vessels, forty of them iron-clad, and more than three
thousand guns afloat upon river and ocean. We say
that since governments existed, no such work as this has
been elsewhere accomplished in such a period of time.
We repeat that we are here to eulogize, neither our
15
President nor his Cabinet; nor to apologize for any
wrong act of any one of them. Nor is it our part to
advise silence with reference to any act of official
delinquency, in any incumbent of any office. But we
plead for patience with our Government, with regard to
measures and acts, until the authors and grounds of
those measures and acts can be made known. We beg
in behalf of our Government, for relief from the spirit
of imjDetuous, intolerant censure, which often condemns
when the event proves that there was no one to blame,
and as often, when censure is due, lays the blame at
the wrong door, and in either case, fortifies the Kebel-
lion, weakens the arm of the Republic, prolongs the
contest and multiplies its victims.
2. And we plead for patience with the Providence of
God.
Impatience is not unnatural. And when great inte-
rests are at stake, we are wont to allow suspense to rise
almost to anguish. We desire sight for it rather than
faith, that after all, division and anarchy, are not
destined to drag us down to a lingering, national death.
We cannot bear to find ourselves after two such years,
still in suspense, and we go seeking for some soothsayer
to unseal the lips of the future, that she may reveal to
us in audible voice, the time of the end. But Faith is
patient—and to patience with divine Providence, the
marvellous Goodness of God exliorts us.
It is true our recent history has been flecked with
16
light and shade. We have had successes and reverses
—but withal, how sweetly the smiles of God have
lighted up the land. What May ever saw orchards
so decked with blossoms, as last May witnessed in our
land ? What June ever saw a more luxuriant vegeta-
tion ? What Autumn ever saw a more joyous Feast of
Ingathering ? Our commerce, with an occasional fright
and an occasional loss, found its way to the ends of the
earth. The angel of health has spread its wings
between us and pestilential blasts ; and rosy cheeks and
bright eyes, still lighten up our household, and
strong-limbed children and stalwart men, throng our
thoroughfares. And while England, at peace with all
the world, is at her wits ends to feed her starving chil-
dren ; our own land, engaged in this gigantic war, sends
ship-loads of provisions, a free gift to England's j^oor !
Thus, though far from forgetting the widows and the
orphans, and the weeping parents, with which the
Rebellion has filled the land, or that vast tide of soli-
citudes that has ebbed and flowed, and driven sleep
from so many pillows, yet in view of all the vast inte-
rests at stake, the perils we have passed, the blessings
we have enjoyed, and are still enjoying, we feel abun-
dantly authorized to call for a spirit of calm, uncom-
plaining patience, with the providence of God.
Our lasiny flagrant sins and sliortcomings, loudly call
us to patience. ^'' Whom the Lord loveth he chasten-
17
eth." If God loves our nation, he will now and then
visit it with chastisements, that he may disrobe it,
at least in part, of the poisoned tunic of its sins.
—
Our Father, (we never doubted less than now) has
ordained a long and glorious career for our nation, and
he will not, that she go on her way, with unrepented
sins weighing her to the earth, and bringing her to an
early and an untimely senility and decrepitude.
Hence he must administer chastisements. It might
have come in drought and famine. It might have come
in devastating pestilence. It has come in the form of a
a vast, and cruel civil war.
Let us be patient under it, and be more anxious to
discover and repent of our sins, than to be too early
freed from our sorrows. Every man, woman and child,
has personal sins of which to repent. Every city is
laden with its own sins. The Nation is a great sinner.
Listen to the profanities that float on every breeze.
God complains of us as of Israel—" And my name
continually every day is blasphemed." See how drun-
kenness staggers through our streets, and God calls as
by the mouth of Isaiah—"Wo to the drunkards of
Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower
which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are
overcome with Avine." Who that has seen the misery
occasioned in a single family by the course of one mem-
ber, as he passed to the inebriate's grave, and learns
that many thousands of such graves are dug and filled
3
18
every year, will consider it an extravagant declaration,
that our war costs the land less heartache in a year,
than we annually suffer from this fearful plague ? But
why need we enumerate? Has not God a controversy
with us, with reference to wrongs inflicted upon one
another, wrongs upon the Red Indian, and wrongs upon
the Black African ?
And if God is to employ our nation, and is even
now employing it in the erection of his kingdom, he
will now and then chasten and correct, and thus
purify us.
Let us be patient then. God is doing a good work
upon us, and a good work for us, when he afflicts us
in disciplinary chastisements. And let us in the day
of our trial, inquire after and repent of our sins, that
the evil days may be shortened.
Again—we may find a most eloquent appeal for
patience, in the reflection that in and through these
chastening sorrows, the life of the Republic is passing
into a new development.
Three great eras of the nation have already passed.
The first witnessed the freezings and starvings, and
Indian butcheries, in the early settlement of these
shores—sorrows that wore much less penal than semi-
nal—sorrows sent on those generation s,'=' much less as a
* See some excellent remarks upon the significance of afflictive dispensations
in an admirable article on "The War," attributed to the Rev. Dr. Hodge, in
the Biblical Repertory for January, 1863.
19
punishment of their sins, than as tutors to fit them to
become the parentage of a great nation. The second
involved the bloody and protracted Revolutionary
struggle—a struggle imposed upon the nation, not to
punish it for its sins, but as a necessary means of usher-
ing it forth to independence. In the third we emerged
from the disorders and imbecilities of the old confedera-
tion. And now, in divine Providence, a fourth arrest
is laid upon us, checking a career of industrial and com-
mercial prosperity and wild extravagance more corrupt-
ing than war, and transmuting a money-making into an
emphatically money-giving nation,''' that in another
agony we may throw off for ever, certain heretical poi-
sons that were eating like a gangrene and threatening
our life. And if the men of the Revolution endured
seven long years of distress and anguish, shame on us
if we cannot endure seven long years more, to leave to
our children a more perfect government, and a brighter
national heritage than they left to us. We can endure
twenty years of war with less suftering, than seven cost
them. Cicero was fond of saying that in rescuing Rome
from Cataline, he had done a larger service for his
country, than the founders of the nation in erecting the
commonwealth. And we harbor no shadow of doubt,
* The estimated amount of voluntary contributions by our citizens to the
government, in various ways since the war began, reaches the magnificient sum
of five hundred millions of dollars ! Will some one now make an estimate of the
reflex moral influence upon a people of such a contribution?
20
that they who carry the present struggle to a successful
issue, will lie nearer the heart of posterity, than even
the sages and heroes of the Revolution.
Let us be patient under disasters. No great cause
ever yet went onward with unvarying success. It is
not God's way in human affairs. The husbandman
must plough, and sow, and toil, long and hard before he
can reap, and why should God fdl our national garners
with so rich a crop, without adequate antecedent,
toil and trial. He is a bold man, who will confidently
affirm that any one of our victories has been more preg-
nant with ultimate blessings to our nation than our de-
feats. Beloved, we verily believe, that the day will
come, wlien the devout and thoughtful patriot will give
cordial thanks to Almighty God for our " Bull Run's,"
"Balls Blufi's," and even for the Rebellion itself!
Let us be patient also with regard to the Fidure.
Much solicitude has been expended upon the possibility
of a reasonably cordial re-union of brethren exasperated
by so long and so bitter strife. Brethren, this is not
the next thing to be done ! This is now a question of
theory and sentiment ; and we are not in condition to
discuss it. Present solicitude upon this point is mere
waste of thought, energy, and life. The great all-en-
grossing duty of the hour, one that demands all wehave of thought and energy, is to disarm the Rebellion !
Till this is done, the sword of Damocles is hanging over
the nation's heart ; when this is done God will show us
21
what next to do !* Many an anxious inquiry has been
made as to the probable continuance of the war; and this
not only by parents whose sons, and hy families, whose
fathers are gone down into the valley of conflict, but
every interest of mercy and humanity joins in the in-
quiry. To this question there is one very obvious
answer :—This war will end just as soon as the govern-
ment is reinstated in its rightful sway over the nation,
and not one instant before ! An arrest of the war on
any other condition, were the annihilation of all hope
of peace till the nation has bled to death.
But when may we hope for a triumphant termination
of this awfully glorious conflict ? Just when God will
!
He that believeth shall not make haste. In the dis-
charge of a duty like that which He has assigned to us,
that of winning the prize of true, free, safe, healthful
government for the race—a race that since Nimrod
usurped the first crown, has been the football of rulers
who claimed the privilege of kicking it by divine right
—we say that such a struggle for such a prize, we can
* Such incidents as the following give us hints of touching significance upon
this subject. A "Confederate" soldier coming upon a bleeding patriotic
martyr as he lay upon a lost field, said, " You are wounded." "Yes." " Can
I do anything for you?" "lam fearfully hungry." "Well, t have only an
apple and a drop of cold coffee; you shall have them." And he kindled a fire,
roasted the apple, warmed the coffee and served them to his bleeding foe with
the tenderness of a brother ! This wounded soldier was borne to our hospital
where he narrated the incident to the Chaplain.
22
carry on just as long as God may will and the need mayexist ! Be patient and leave the future with God.
And let us be patient with one another ! Some have
turned an eye of apprehension toward apparent divisions
in our own midst. An unbridled egotism, that makes
each citizen not only a freeman in the State, but in his
view the embodied wisdom of the State ; constituting
him judge and censor of every official incumbent, and
every governmental measure; disenchanting him of
every trace of reverence for authorities and dignities
;
utterly unfitting him for appreciating the Scripture
doctrine that "the powers that be are ordained of
God," and that magistrates are "ministers of God"
—
this proud, egotistical spirit, is one of the most common
growths of free republican government, and it may in
times of prevailing excitement and surging passion, be-
come a vice, and a source of no little evil. And no
doubt in particular instances the tongue and the pen
may utter, and do utter sentiments that lacerate the
patriotic heart ; sentiments which, should they become
prevalent, would work a more terrible desolation in the
land, than a pestilence and an invading army together.
For instance, now and then, the threat has been
heard of an organized attempt at a reconstruction of the
nation upon the principle of excluding this portion or
that from the new confederacy. A sentiment like this,
is politically blasphemous and pestilential. Its preva-
lence would be the utter ruin of the country. This
23
land is one—made for one government—and there is
not a bleak rock on one of its monntains, nor a sandy
island or peninsula, on one of its shores; there is not
one square inch of its territory, that does not take hold
of its very life! We can just as well spare Pennsyl-
vania as we can South Carolina. We can just as well
spare Ohio as we can spare Rhode Island. We can
just as well spare the Mississippi, as we can spare the
narrowest, shortest rill in which the farmer Avaters his
horse, or the child wades and sails his tiny boat ! There
is not a square inch of territory for which the nation
had not better heroically die than yield it—for yielding
it, would be to die most unheroically ! And we should
say from our very heart of hearts, that he who should
seriously propose and set himself to secure a dismember-
ment of the Republic, even to the tip of its little finger
—'• Let his right hand forget its cunning, and his
tongue for ever cleave to the roof of his mouth!"
But our refuge from all fear of serious and extreme
division among our people ; of the undertaking of wild
and suicidal measures, is first in God, and under God in
the sound sense and intelligence of the mass of our
citizenship. This last has rarely failed in the hour of
need, and the first cannot fail.
Let us be patient then with one another in the ex-
pression of honest convictions. Let opinion meet with
opinion. Let thought clash with thought. All extra-
vagance and treason will meet its just rebuke ; the
24
atmosphere will be cleared by the storm, and God in
his own good time, will make the bells of peace to call
the nation to the house of joyous thanksgiving and
praise.
On the 23d of October, 1781, the midnight slmnbers
of the good citizens of Philadelphia, were broken by a
strange clattering of horses hoofs over the street pave-
ments. A courier from the South had arrived. With
breathless eagerness, he made his way to the house of
the President of the Continental Congress on High
street near Second. He knocked so vehemently, that
the watchman was about to arrest him as a disturber of
the peace. But the stranger replied—" I am from
Yorktown—Cornwallis is taken."
Instant measures were taken to communicate the
thrilling news to all the watchmen in the city, and ere
long the cry was heard echoing through all the streets
—
" Half past twelve o'clock and Cornwallis is taken!"
Hundreds of windows flew up ! Thousands of heads
were thrust out into the frosty air. The streets were
thronged with citizens, and old Philadelphia thrilled
from her heart to her extremities, with joyous, exult-
ant emotion
!
Let those who love the Eepublic have faith in their
God, and faith in the eternal principles that underlie
and pervade our Government ; and let them have
patience with that Government, with its armies, with
its navy, patience with divine Providence, patience
25
under disaster, patience as to the future, and when the
clock of Heaven stril^es the appointed hour, the feet of
another courier-bearing steed will ring upon these
pavement stones, with another and more thrilling mes-
sage from the South, telling us that wild delirium has
given place to reason, mad passion to returning patriot-
ism, and that the odious three-barred symbol of disu-
nion and despotism lies buried beyond resurrection,
while the stripes and stars wave in triumph over its
grave !
And the time will come when every patriot will
thank God that he witnessed and shared in this great
and glorious struggle for the nation's life, and our
noble soldiers will be prouder of the crippled arm or
crutch, than courtier ever was of the stars of honor
conferred by royal favor.
"We are living, we are dwelling,
In a grand and awful time !
In an age, on ages telling,
To be living is sublime !
Hark ! the waking up of nations,
God and Magog to the fray !
Hark ! what soundeth ? Is creation
Groaning for its latter day ?
Will ye play then, will ye dally,
With your music and your wine ?
Up ! It is Jehovah's rally I
God's own arm hath need of thine I
Worlds are charging, Heaven beholding
!
Thou has but an hour to fight I
Now Ihe blazoned cross unfolding.
On ! right onward, for the right!"
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